Comunicação pública e participação social: avaliação do Escritório Frei Tito de Alencar (EFTA)

Abstract

The Frei Tito de Alencar Human Rights and Popular Legal Advice Office (EFTA) is an agency of the Ceará State Legislative Assembly (Alece) that provides legal assistance in collective cases of human rights violations. Founded in 2000, it is the result of a historic struggle in the area of human rights in Fortaleza/CE involving universities, students and social movements. In this dialogue with organized civil society, we start with the question: how does a public agency that works in the defense of human rights understand the area of communication? Considering this context, the general objective of this research is to evaluate the communications consultancy of the Frei Tito Office as a professional practice that mediates relations between public policy and social actors. The specific objectives are: to analyze to what extent the communications consultancy of EFTA dialogues with concepts of public communication; to evaluate how EFTA implementers understand the professional area of communications consultancy inserted in public policy; and to research the perception of users about the work of communications and the promotion of participation and dialogue. With a qualitative approach, this study adopts the perspective of in-depth evaluation (Rodrigues, 2008), which guides the analyses of content, context and the trajectory of communications consultancy in the general context of public policy. Data collection includes the methods of documentary research, bibliographic research, observation and interview. The results obtained show that the work of the communications department focuses on publicizing EFTA’s actions and services, seeking to provide transparency and access to information, but without encouraging social participation and misaligned with a broader concept of the right to communication. The department does not have internal regulations or a communications policy, which contributes to the informal nature and is subject to discontinuity of services due to changes in management in a legislative house. In addition, the department does not have any exchange with the communities in the neighborhoods. EFTA’s implementers see the importance of communicating about human rights, strengthening the office’s performance and dialoguing with society, although they point out deficiencies in the functional organization of the department. For the users interviewed, communication is the process established between the office and the social movements in the territories, while the consultancy is in the social network publications.